Selco (asi/86230) announced that it has purchased fellow watch supplier S&S Time (asi/84360). The Tulsa, OK, suppliers have a long-standing relationship ever since Vi Smith and Floyd Schulmeier left Selco 19 years ago to start S&S. No financial terms of the deal were released. "We've been working together for the last 10 years, helping each other here and there, and I have a really good relationship with Vi," said Mark Abels, president of Selco. "They just decided they were ready to wind it down, and I was the first call they made. And over the last four months or so we've been trying to put it together."

Per the deal, Selco will maintain the S&S name and keep the company's watch lines and marketing initiatives separate from Selco's. "They have their own watch line," Abels said about keeping the names separate. "It's got some traction out there. People know it, people are loyal to it, people use it in programs." He also cited the fact that Selco is contracted to carry watches from the Movado Group, and could not offer the brand name watch lines that S&S carries – such as Seiko and Bulova – under the Selco name.

Most of S&S' employees will be retained in the transition, though the S&S offices will not. Smith and Schulmeier will remain on a consulting basis "for a while," said Abels, to help with the transition. Their son Jeff Smith will be staying with Selco permanently as the company's national sales manager.

Abels is bullish about the impact that the acquisition, along with the general state of the market, will have on Selco in 2011. "It's going to add substantially," he said. "Not only from adding a second company, but it feels like things are getting better, feels like things are improving. It just feels like the market is a little bit stronger this Christmas than the last couple. I'm optimistic from an overall economy standpoint and what we're adding here.